Of Flight and Blood
by DogsandDames
Summary: Not too great at summaries. Twilight/Maximum Ride crossover. Foul-mouthed & foul-tempered Bella. No Charlie or Renee; replaced with Ella and Valencia Martinez from Maximum Ride. Check it out, yeah? Rated T for foul language and violence. *This is the Bella/Edward mashup.
1. Prologue

**[ [ A / N ] ]**

**I kind of suck at synopses, so just check it out, yeah?**

**I've been stewing over a **_**Maximum Ride**_**/**_**Twilight**_** crossover for about 2 or 3 years.**

**I'm a horrible procrastinator.**

**Here's some info:**

**Most of the characters of **_**Twilight**_** with the concept of **_**Maximum Ride**_** exercised upon one individual**

**Foul-tempered, foul-mouthed, blue-eyed Bella**

**There's no Charlie and no Renee – there is, however, Valencia and Ella Martinez, both characters from **_**Maximum Ride**_

**Not sure whether or not there'll be a Jacob Black in this one. Not that I don't love him, but I just don't do love triangles. In light of that, after I finish this **_**Of Flight and Blood**_** with the Bella/Edward mashup, I'll be doing a version of **_**Of Flight and Blood**_** with a Bella/Jacob mashup. That way, everyone's happy :)**

**Besides the aforementioned, all other characters are the same and so are the settings**

**Multiple POV**

**NEways. Thanks for checking this out! Enjoy~**

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

**Prologue**

_He stepped into the clearing. The scent of blood tainted the air. He inhaled, and white, scalding fire exploded in his throat. It'd been days since he last fed._

There. _On the leaf – a speck of blood. He walked cautiously towards it, listening for any movement, watching for any threat even though there were few things more dangerous than he and those like him._

_And yet, he still wasn't prepared for the missile that slammed into him and sent him crashing into a tree. The tree tumbled, cracking and splitting beneath his rock hard skin. Before he could right himself, he felt a hand wrap itself in his shirt, and he was tugged upright and flung into another tree. This one splintered but didn't break completely._

_He found himself staring into a pair of deep blue eyes that promised a slow, agonizing death. From his hole in the tree, he watched the eyes narrow as a hand tightened around his throat and pushed him further into the hole his body had created._

_The scent of blood clung to the girl like a pirate to a treasure, and feathers rained down around them. There was down in her dark hair._

"_Who the fuck are you?" she snarled harshly. "Speak quickly, vampire." The hand cut off his air supply – as if he needed it. "Because the next five seconds will determine whether you live or die."_


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_"They're coming!" I shouted. "Boad, go – I'll distract them!"_

Spiraling through the air.

"_Not leavin' you, Bells!" He swung his fist back and crushed an Eraser's skull. The awkward birdman spiraled down into the ocean beneath._

I was falling.

I clenched my eyes shut, and the wind whipped the tears away.

"Go_!" I roared, and I saw blood drip from his ears as he flinched. "Protect Kael and Sage!"_

Gone. They were all _gone_.

_ They were surrounding us._

Survive.

I had to survive. Had to find them. They had to be alive.

_They had to be._

Vision blurred by tears and sobs crushing my chest, I opened my eyes as wide as they would go. I was over land.

My wings – broken and bloody. Barely useful. Could barely see the dark, creamy brown feathers through the crimson.

Agony – so much agony as I forced them to open wide. And for a second, just one, I soared.

My scream pierced the air, and I looked back – my right wing. Flapping uselessly about. Nausea rose in the back of my throat like an angry wave over a surfer – but I forced it down.

Had to survive.

Had to find them.

_They had to be alive._

The ground was coming up quick. I tucked my left wing and held my right wing as close to my body as I could stand – and prepared for impact.

One hundred feet.

Seventy-five feet.

Fifty feet.

_Oh God_.

Twenty-five feet.

Like a hawk swooping in for its prey, I loosed my voice. The scream rose in my throat like bile, and the trees bowed. The grass flattened. The rocks shattered. And for one precious moment, I hung in the air like a broken branch from a tree.

And then, gravity found me.

I crashed into the trees, and they splintered beneath me. Tumbled like a rag doll and came to rest against a sheer cliff face.

Silence.

My right wing covered me, dripping blood onto the ground before me. My left wing was bent at an odd angle beneath me.

_Stuck the landing_, I thought hysterically.

Groaned. Had to set my wings, or they would heal wrong. Needed a splint.

Couldn't move.

Everything _hurt_.

A sob tore from my throat on a breath. Couldn't move. Had to survive.

"_Move_, damn you!" My voice was a whip in the air, and the cliff face cracked. Exhaustion slowed my sobs. A pool of blood was slowly spreading beneath me. My vision shivered. My lids sank.

_Darkness._

**[ [ A / N ] ]**

**R&R, please? Let me know what you think! :)**


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**[ [ A / N ] ]**

**Hey! Thanks again for reading **_**Of Flight and Blood**_** :) It means a lot.**

**At the end of the chapters, I'll start putting a little glossary of the terms I'm using from **_**Maximum Ride**_** for the Twilighters who're reading this XD**

**In this chapter, the house that Bella and Charlie lived in (in the books & movies) will be brought in. Different people live in it, but it looks exactly the same. The only notable difference is that it has a forest behind it.**

**NEways, enjoy and R&R. Thanks a lot, guys!**

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_Bella_

I awoke with a gasp. Hurt. Everything _hurt_.

Blood and sweat caused my clothes to stick to me. My eyes rolled in their sockets. _Where am I?_

Thick droplets of water had condensed on my wings while I slept. The sky was pink with the beginnings of morning. And the forest around me was a massacre of nature. Trees were broken and splintered from my crash landing, mutilated and fragmented from the power of my voice. The grass was either flat or had been ripped up with the tree roots that had come tearing from the ground when I'd landed. What had once been rocks were then piles of steel colored dust.

_Someone must've heard._ My breath began to come faster. _There's no way I caused this much destruction and _no one_ heard._

Had to move. Had to survive. Couldn't let anyone find me.

They were depending on me.

When I tried to push myself into a sitting position, the world shivered before snapping back into focus when I bit the inside of my cheek. The fresh pain helped clear my mind.

_Have to move_. _Can't sleep._

Had to take is slow. I took stock of my body – it wasn't pretty.

Both wings – still very much broken but healing fast. I had to set them before they healed; otherwise, I'd have to re-break them after. My right eye was swollen shut, and my right ear was ringing like I'd just been decked by an Eraser. I was fairly sure my left arm was dislocated, and my right femur ached like there was no tomorrow – probably a fracture. I'd have to be careful of the weight I put on it once I stood. Too much, and it would break completely.

Bruises and open wounds littered my body. The worst was the pulsing gash across my back. It had just barely missed my wings. There was a deep gash on my calf and a stab wound on my side as well.

I wouldn't make it very far in my condition, and there was nowhere I could go. I needed medical supplies. I needed food. I needed a fucking map. _Where the fuck am I?_

_Won't find out laying here._

Slowly, painfully, I rolled to my belly, and my dislocated shoulder flared in pain. When I came to, my cheek was pressed to the cold, wet ground, and my breathing had quickened. _Have to sit up._

I drew my working arm up and placed it on the ground beside my chest. The blood crusted on my skin flaked to the ground with the movement. _Go slow_, I reminded myself and began the excruciating process of pushing myself into a sitting position. It was almost five minutes later that I leaned back against the sheer cliff face, breath coming in painful gasps and tears leaving clear paths through the blood on my cheeks. There was a sticky puddle of blood beside me, where I'd lain for the past few hours. I looked down at myself.

My clothes were shredded, hanging on by threads and yielding to me as much modesty as I could ask for, in light of the shit-storm that'd been life for the last three weeks. Running on fumes, moving the Flock from place to place in an effort to stay just one _measley_ step ahead of the School, and barely bathing or eating.

And still, I'd failed them. My voice attacked the downed tree before me. Anger. I was angry – pissed, piqued, enraged, _furious_. I was their leader, damnit. And I'd _failed_ them. If there was a _single_ _feather_ out of place when I found them, I'd bring the School down with my bare fucking hands, and there wouldn't be a damn thing they could do to stop me.

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_Bella_

It took me a painstaking thirty minutes to get myself on my feet. I leaned against the cliff face, chest rising and falling as I breathed through the pain. Dry blood flaked from my clothes and fluttered to the ground, and my heavy breathing was the only sound in the forest.

Next, I unbuckled my leather belt and slowly slid it out of my belt loops. What I was about to do would be painful – and I would probably faint. I hated fainting. It made me feel like some buxom 1950s actress.

I put the belt in my mouth and got a good grip going with my teeth. Before I could talk myself out it, I wrapped my hand around my left upper arm and rammed into the cliff face, shoving my arm up as I did so. My teeth ground into the belt, and the dull, juicy sound of my arm being shoved back into its socket reverberated in the small clearing.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I didn't take the belt out of my mouth until I was sure I wouldn't scream. I still had more work to do, so I swiped the tears off my cheeks with my forearms and examined my wings. They hung to the ground and left lines in the dirt whenever I moved. They were covered in blood, dirt, and leafy debris. The feathers were caked with grime, weighing my wings down, and I couldn't see the dark, creamy brown that matched my hair.

On the off chance that I ran across a human, they'd almost certain call an ambulance – or the cops. I couldn't let them see my wings – even though the back of my long-sleeved tee had been torn asunder by the swipe of an Eraser's claws. Still . . . I wasn't comfortable taking chances. Never had been, and the past week had done little to nothing to cure me of that.

I tried to flex my wings – and nearly collapsed when my back muscles cramped painfully. My fingernails dug into my palms as the tears leaked from between clenched lids. It was almost a full minute before the cramp finally released, and a sob fell from my throat on a sigh of relief. This would be even more painful than my shoulder.

I couldn't – _wouldn't _– put myself through that again. There was only so much a body could take before it collapsed, and I was deathly aware of unconsciousness shivering on the borders of my mind, waiting for a moment to strike. So I grabbed my messy, broken left wing and began the careful, agonizing process of folding it by hand. When I finally had it folded above my hip, I leaned back against the cliff face to hold it there and repeated the process with my right wing.

By the time I'd finished, I was breathing just as hard as I'd been when I'd crashed landed. Both of my wings were broken in multiple places, and the process of refolding them had been one of the singularly most painful things I'd ever had to do.

I looped my belt around my waist before slowly sliding it up and around my wings. I buckled it just beneath my bust and pushed away from the cliff face. The belt held my wings snuggly against my back as if they were tucked for the dive bomb I'd been known for back at the School.

If I did happen across a human, hopefully they'd think my wings were a simple, large smudge on my back.

_Have to move._

I took a step, and my femur flared. My breathing hitched, but I ignored it and maneuvered around the tree that I'd beat into slivers and needles with my voice. Slowly, I moved through the clearing, dodging around the damage of my landing.

I cast uncertain glances at my surroundings. I hadn't the faintest idea where I was – what I _did_ have, though, was one hell of a sense of direction. Being a bird kid had its advantages.

I was facing due east. Usually, I simply used my shadow to find north and went from there – to encourage Sage and Kael not to rely on their instincts all the time – but the tall pine trees were doing a damnably good job of blocking out the sun. Not that there _was_ much sun, given the cloudy, almost gloomy, atmosphere of the sky.

The year was coming up on fall, and there were only six states in the US with cities that were cloudy year-round: Michigan, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Washington State. I hadn't been on the eastern side of the US in nearly a decade, and the Flock and I had been flying south when we were ambushed – that left Oregon and Washington State. After tossing the ideas around in my head a bit more, I came to the conclusion that I was stalling. I didn't want to move. Moving hurt like hell.

I sighed, immediately regretted it when my chest ached, and began moving through the forest at a snail's pace.

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_Bella_

_"They're coming!" I shouted. "Boad, go – I'll distract them!"_

"_Not leavin' you, Bells!" He swung his fist back and crushed an Eraser's skull. The awkward birdman spiraled down into the ocean beneath._

"Go_!" I roared, and I saw blood drip from his ears as he flinched. "Protect Kael and Sage!"_

_ They were surrounding us._

_ Another Eraser joined the one I was fighting and swiped at me. He clipped my wing, and I cursed. Tucking my wings and dropping underneath them, I grabbed one's leg, gave a powerful beat of my wings, and swung him into his friend. They collided and became a tangle of limbs as they fell into the ocean below. Boad broke the neck of the Eraser that had his arms wrapped around Sage, and she turned, prepared to fight, but calmed when she saw Boad._

_ Kael flew to meet them, and my heart leapt. They were all safe! One powerful down stroke of my wings, and I—a bullet slammed into me from above, forcing the breath from my lungs and halting my wings mid-beat. Sage shouted my name as a clawed han—_

I jolted awake, sweat pasting my hair to my skin.

The sky was on fire, the sun sending up its final dregs of warmth before it finally sunk beneath the horizon. _How long was I out?_

I wished my internal clock was as good as my sense of direction – if it had been, I would've only slept for an hour, as I'd meant to, instead of a whole damn day, as I apparently had. I dragged myself up, breathing laborious and body aching, and stumbled back onto the path I'd found. I had no idea where it led, but it was a tremendous step up from having to step over fallen trees and tripping over overgrown roots.

My wings felt more sturdily set, and I knew they'd have to be re-broken. Damnit. Breaking a bone _once_ was more than painful. But having to _re-break_ it? Pure insanity. But if I was ever going to fly again, it was the only option.

An hour into my trek, the path began to roughen before disappearing altogether. It'd been another hour of arduous traipsing and painful panting when it happened.

Wolves.

I happened to glance behind me, and I spotted one slinking toward me, as tall as my waist with its head lowered and teeth bared in warning. Its eyes shone, reflecting the moonlight – much like an Eraser's. On a good day, when I didn't have broken wings and a fractured femur, I was far stronger than any human man. On a good day, I could take the wolf head on, break its neck, and escape with only a few scrapes and bruises.

Today was not a good day.

Fear pounded through me, and I could tell the moment the wolf scented it. A rumble sounded through the forest and was answered by at least five others. It was a pack – hunting me. I glanced at the ground, and saw the trail of blood I hadn't noticed I'd been leaving. Another reason for me to end the School. Sending their _damn_ Erasers after me and mine. Breaking my damn wings. When I got my _fucking_ hands around their throats—

The wolf dashed forward, and I took off like a bat out of hell. My femur flared, letting me know _exactly_ what it thought of me running, and the aches and bruises that'd settled into dull throbs redoubled their painful efforts. My shoulder pulsated, already almost healed, but I ignored it and pumped my arms as quickly as they would go. In the air, I was nearly unbeatable. But on land? About as fast as a human. The wolf caught up quickly and wrapped its jaws around my ankle. I redirected my momentum and spun into a low kick. The top of my foot connected with the wolf's head.

Yelping, it released me, and I turned and dashed again. I could see the other wolves keeping pace with me, flanking me, in the surrounding woods. They were slowly closing in, and if I didn't figure something out quick, they would have me. I saw a broken branch hanging from a tree – it was thick and probably heavy. It was perfect. A few more paces, and I came upon the tree. I grabbed the branch and tugged, but the sinew-like bark held tight. The wolf was only a few meters away and closing in fast.

Panicking, I yanked the branch with one, gargantuan swell of strength, and it came loose with an earsplitting shred. I shifted the momentum into a downwards swing and clobbered the wolf just as he leapt. He hit the ground with a thick, dull thump and didn't get back up. I swung the branch around and grazed another wolf that'd managed to sneak up on me. I set my back up against the tree and prepared for the fight ahead.

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_Bella_

I stepped over the lupine bodies and limped away from the carnage of my battle. I felt the blood leaking from the re-opened gash on my back, probably further staining my already crusty jeans and grimy wings. There were deep claw marks on my arms and stomach and a bite wound on my thigh. But pride swelled in my chest. I was the one walking away – _alive_. I wasn't easy pickings. I was strong, damnit.

_Not strong enough to save Kael or Boad or Sage, though_, a cynical, bitchy little voice whispered in the back of my mind.

If I could've flipped the voice the bird, I would've. I'd stopped thinking about them. I had to _survive_, damnit – and spending all my energy fighting off the heart-wrenching, wounding thoughts of my missing Flock wouldn't help me in the least.

I would find them when I was healed, when I could fight for them as their leader should. Until then, thoughts of my Flock would stay in the little black box in the back of my mind where bad dreams and even worse memories spent their days. They spent their nights haunting me.

I was walking for another twelve hours, and I'd sunk into a dreary, sleepy depression. The sky was light, in the throes of morning, when it happened.

Laughter.

I stopped moving and tilted my head, listening for the sound, waiting for it to happen again.

And when it did, I couldn't help the grin that lit my face and cracked the dried blood on my cheeks. The sound was beautiful, so full of happiness and delight – I'd never heard anything like it.

I followed the sound, almost eagerly. Even before my crash landing, it'd been weeks since I'd heard Sage laugh, weeks since Kael or Boad had given me so much as a smile or even a grin – and I'd hated myself for that. If I'd been a more capable leader, if I'd been stronger, I could've protected them. I could've, at the very least, made them feel safe. And yet, when they'd needed me most, I'd failed them. I didn't know where they were, if they were alive, and it'd been eating at me and driving me into a deep, grim depression.

I hadn't even realized it until I'd heard the laughter.

I slowed and calmed my breathing, peeking through the leafy foliage at the scene before me. The house was little, but more than big enough to accommodate a family. Dark grey shingles and pale, white siding made the house look plain. The beauty, though, were the people who lived in it.

A dark-haired girl, her hair stopping about mid-back, ran and scooped up a small pug. She wore a thin sweatshirt, jeans, and running shoes. The pug lovingly licked at her face before wriggling free of her arms. She landed on the ground with a soft _thump_ and padded to an orange ball that shimmered with saliva. When she picked up the ball and turned, her eyes met mine through the foliage.

She dropped the ball and dashed to stand in front of her owner, pushing against her legs and growling at me. Her eyes shone with fear and rage.

The girl paused and looked down at her dog, dumbfounded. "Magnolia?" Then, she squinted into the forest. I was fairly sure she couldn't see me, as the dog so easily had, but I still tensed when her eyes ran over me. She searched the surrounding forest for nearly five minutes before she shrugged and turned away. "Come here, Magnolia. It's time for breakfast." The dog didn't move and continued growling.

I was turning away when I made the mistake. I put too much weight on my fractured femur – and a low cry of pain bubbled up my throat.

I heard the girl gasp, and the pug's growls redoubled. "_Who's there?_" she cried in fear.

I said nothing but turned slowly. She was holding a rail thin lawn chair high above her head, looking fully prepared to chuck it at the intruder – at me, apparently. And it struck me as hilarious. Of all the things I'd had thrown at me, a chair had never been one of them. Grenades? Sure. Knives? Most definitely. But a chair? That was a wild card, if I'd ever seen one.

Exhaustion suddenly took me, and I decided to throw caution to the wind. I was fairly certain I'd lost almost five pints of blood. It was a blessing that hypovolemia hadn't set in, and it was harder than I'd thought it would be for me to admit that I'd probably be dead within the next hour.

So I did what any sane person would do.

I stepped out of the forest.

The pug barked angrily, and the girl's face contorted into a mask of horror.

The ground rushed up to meet my face, and the last thing I saw before unconsciousness finally broke my mental barriers was the girl and her mutt running for me.

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_**Glossary**_

**Eraser**** - a breed of human-lupine hybrids that were created by the School**

**The School**** - the place where the Flock, Erasers, and other various mutants were created**

**[ [ A / N ] ]**

**Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! :)**


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**[ [ A / N ] ]**

**Heeyy, buddies :) So in this chapter, multiple POV will finally begin happening. Sorry for keeping you in Bella's POV for so long. But it'll all be okay *thumbs up* *George Lopez voice* I got this!**

**I couldn't, however, describe the house in a way I was satisfied with, so just imagine it how it was in the movie. Except it has a basement and a guestroom.**

**A few things I was waiting to mention:**

**~Ella Martinez is a little older – about 15 (I think she was about 12 in the books and manga). She's also in the early-10****th**** grade. Her birth date was never mentioned in **_**Maximum Ride**_**, so let's work on the assumption that she has her birthday during the school year. So she'll end up being 16 when she ends 10****th**** grade and begins 11****th**** grade.**

**~Charlie Swan is still technically in the story – he's just not an active character. He's taking the place of the genetic significance of Jeb in **_**Maximum Ride**_**. The Riders know what I mean XD. For the Twilighters: That means he's just a sperm donor.**

**Lots of OOC, but work with me. I'm crafting beauty here. As I've said before: If I get anything wrong or if you see anything I can improve on, comment/review about it! **_**Constructive**_** criticism is always welcome! ^_^**

**NEways. Thanks again for reading! Enjoy!**

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_Bella_

_Pain. Darkness. The feel of cold metal against my skin._

_ My eyes fluttered open, and my heartbeat sped up._

_ A white coat. A whitecoat. Operating on me._

_ I struggled, but it was weak. Too much blood loss. Too much pain. My body had finally given out._

_ I drew in a breath and screamed._

_ Plaster dust rained down on me. Light bulbs shattered. The metal instruments trembled on their perch._

_ Blood bubbled up my throat, cutting the scream short._

"What the hell have they done to you?" _a voice murmured, horror bringing a tremble to the smooth, light alto._

_ Memories surged forth, and I shivered. _What have they done to me?_ I didn't want to remember, didn't want the black box to open. I'd locked it eons ago, afraid to give the memories too much power over my future – over _me.

_ There was a shrill scream. What little light filtered through my parted lids warped and took on the shapes of the creatures from my memories._

_ The little lizard boy I'd lived beside when I was seven. He'd been only three. One day, the whitecoats took him out of his cage for a "routine checkup"._

"Ella, the defib!" _the smooth alto shouted_. "Hurry!"

_ The boy they'd brought back was a broken, mewling thing. Patches of scaly skin and fingers and toes missing._

Cold metal on my skin. "Clear!" A shock running through me, seizing my muscles before releasing me.

_One of his eyes had been torn from its socket._

Again. "Clear!" The agonizing, life-granting shock zinged through my body.

_ He'd died looking at me._

The shrill beeping steadied for a moment before dropping again. The smooth alto cursed. "The yellow fluid in the cabinet! Yes, that one! Bring it here!"

_ More memories surged forth, cracking the black box open even more. The pressure chamber. Surgeries without anesthesia. The tests. So many tests. Cages. Collars._

Something plunged into my chest, piercing my heart. Eyes rolling behind my lids. Back arching off the metal slab as my body tensed like a rubber band drawn too tightly.

_I felt the tears course from my eyes and into my hair._

Slowly – agonizingly slow – my body relaxed. My heart began to beat again. My muscles ached, my body screamed – but I was alive.

A trembling hand smoothed my hair back, and I felt breath on my cheek as I dozed to the land of dreams. "A survivor."

Sweet, unequivocal darkness reached for me and wrapped me in its embrace.

"_You've always been a survivor."_

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_Valencia_

I sank down onto the couch, hands covering my mouth. I hadn't seen Charlie Swan in almost seventeen years – but I'd recognize his dull, chocolate hair from a mile away. Perhaps even two.

_What did they do to her?_

The girl laid out on the operating table in my basement wasn't what we'd discussed.

We were supposed to create the children that would _save_ the world from itself. Children that would protest the earthly damage and wide-spread pollution that humans seemed so eager to drown themselves in. Children that would become the shining beacon that led the world into a better tomorrow.

_But not this way._

Tears brimmed on my lashes as I remembered what the girl had whispered, voice broken and defeated.

_"Pressure chamber . . . . So many tests. Cages. Collars."_

Her words had startled me for two reasons – and one had been because they'd cracked the glass frames of every picture in the room. The other had been because of her words. I hadn't managed to catch all of what she'd said, but what I'd heard had been more than enough.

Itexicon had lied.

"Mom," Ella said, voice strangled as she sank down beside me. She passed me a napkin, and I remembered that my nose was bleeding from the sheer force of the girl's voice. "Mom, what was that?"

Wiping my nose, I put my arm around her and touched my forehead to hers. "A blast from the past, hon."

"A blast from the past?" She leaned away from me. "You know her?"

I almost nodded – almost. But until I was sure, until I was absolutely positive that Itexicon and Charlie Swan had committed the crimes the girl had subconsciously accused them of, I would keep my suspicions – and my past – to myself.

"I don't," I finally answered my daughter. "But she reminded me of a colleague." _True enough._

She stared at me before nodding. She fidgeted nervously. "What should we do? If we wake her up, she'll scream again . . . ." She flinched at the memories of the girl's screams.

I hung my head lower. _What did they do to her?_ No earthly being was born with a power like that. How much experimenting had it taken to alter her voice? How many years?

_How much torture?_

The sob built in my chest, and I stood abruptly. The girl was in terrible shape. I would have to take the week off. There were no appointments that couldn't wait – and wait they would.

I strode back to my basement door and swung it open. The squeaking hinges made for a menacing silence. I slowly took the stairs one at a time, Ella on my heels.

"What are we going to do with her?" she asked for the fifth time. "Maybe we should take her to a hospital . . . ."

I shook my head. "If we take her to a hospital, she might hurt someone. Lock Magnolia out."

The pug, overwhelmed with the need to protect Ella, tried to barge passed me into the small operating room. Ella scooped her up.

"No, Maggy," she said gently. "You can't come in here." I heard the door close as I donned my scrubs.

I was the only veterinarian in Forks, Washington. At least once a week, a hunter's dog was injured and brought to my house, and I charged the owners double my usual fee for hunting outside of hunting season. I had a clinic, of course – but I couldn't be there around the clock. Late night and early morning emergencies were brought to my home. It was just as stocked as my clinic. The white wall to the right was lined with medicines – pills and liquids. The left wall was dominated by a grey counter that held four sets of operating tools – the fifth was in the small, steel sterilizer at the end of the counter.

Quickly, I prepared the operating table, grabbing a newly sterilized pack of operating instruments. The girl was out cold, but I still made sure to dose her with anesthesia. Preparations done, I went to the sink and washed my hands in burning hot water before slipping into my gloves. Ella stepped up to the table, already in her scrubs and gloves.

"What do you need me to do?"

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

_Valencia_

There was a belt wound tightly under her bust, so I cut through it. After cutting through the ruined fabric of her shirt and jeans to see the extent of the damage done to her body, I stared.

I hadn't believed it when I'd brought her in. _There's no way they're real._

I mean, who would believe that a girl could have wings?

But there they were: caked with grime, filth, and God-knows-whatever-else, but _real_.

They were strangely flat as she laid on them. Ella stared at me in disbelief. She was my assistant, when school allowed, because I hadn't been able to find a veterinary technician in Forks, even in the four years I'd been searching for one. She'd been helping me doctor animals since the year before.

"Mom?" Her voice was quiet and strangled. "Mom, why does she have wings?"

I shook my head. "I don't know." My own voice was abnormal as well. _What did they do to you?_

My hands began to tremble, and the sob built in my chest again. _Had I really been a part of subjecting a child to_ torture_?_ I clenched my fists and shook my head again, harder that time. I couldn't think like that. I couldn't _let _myself thing like that. _Not now. _So I did the only other thing I could do.

I set to repairing what I could.

Her right eye was swollen shut, and she was covered in bruises. There was a quickly burgeoning, angry purple bruise on her shoulder – her arm must've been dislocated. But when I rolled the limb in its socket, it rotated perfectly. It was already healed – on the inside, anyway. My heart sank when I spotted marks of strangulation around her neck. Not the clean, rough marks of a rope but the large, wide marks of hands. _What did they do to you? _Most of the wounds were simple scrapes and scratches that only had to be cleaned. The ones that worried me most were the open wounds that were caked with grime and would need to be stitched closed. There were deep, filthy claw marks on her arms and stomach, a bite wound on her thigh, and a stab wound on her left side.

When I'd finally finished cleaning and stitching them, I glanced at the clock. It'd only been an hour since we began. I looked across to Ella, and she nodded. We spent the next minute carefully flipping the unconscious girl onto her back. Ella's eyes went to her wings.

My eyes went to the nasty gash that stretched from her left hip to her right shoulder.

Whatever had cut her had sliced through the strap of her bra as well. The gash was nearly a foot and a half long, almost two inches wide and full of grime. It was surrounded by a deep, angry red and slowly oozed blood and pus – the wound was infected. Her wings were covered in dry, flaky blood and filth. There was deep laceration on her calf as well.

I gingerly grabbed her wing and unfolded it – she flinched. It was only a little movement, but it still shouldn't have happened.

_She should be sedated. _I drew in a breath. The belt that'd be wrapped around her middle must've been holding her wings – because they were broken.

Grimly, I bit the inside of my cheek. I was qualified for orthopedic surgery, and I'd finished my schooling for avian surgery nearly three years before – but I'd never operated on actual wings.

"Should we give her more anesthesia?" Ella asked, already prepping the needle.

I shook my head and sighed. "No. I need to know which parts are broken, and she's in no condition to be moved to the clinic. I need her to react for me."

After tucking and untucking the wings and bending them in every angle I could think of, I found her wings to be broken in three places, collectively. The humeri of both wings were clean breaks, and the second digit of her right wing, the very tip, was a clean break. It brought a sigh of relief to my lips. Clean breaks could be splinted and wouldn't require surgery – if they healed correctly.

Splinting her wings would have to wait until all of her wounds were cleaned and stitched. Her wings finally sorted out, I set to cleaning around the wound, and when that was done, Ella and I applied pressure with sterile gauze to staunch the bleeding. Once the bleeding stopped, I set to cleaning the wound.

It took seven packs of gauze, but when I was done, the wound was free of every particle of dirt and grime that could be found. I ran saline through the wound once more just to be cautious and nodded my thanks to Ella when she used the suction as I'd taught her to. I patted the wound dry with more sterile gauze before I began stitching it closed. It took forty-five minutes.

"Tetanus shot," I said quietly, and Ella passed me a needle full of clear liquid. I glanced up at her and smiled. She'd watched me disinfect wounds many times before, and she'd already had the shot prepared.

Next, I moved on to the laceration on her calf, the last of her wounds. It, too, was infected, so I repeated the process. It barely took two minutes.

I unhooked the face mask from around my ears and took a step back as Ella did the same. The girl was still filthy, but at least she was no longer _bleeding_ and filthy.

And she smelled like she hadn't bathed in weeks.

There was small tub in the corner of the basement that I used for bathing the injured dogs that came to me for checkups. Ella and I carried the girl over there – haltingly, because our hands kept slipping on her sweaty skin. Once we got her in there, Ella ran upstairs to get a bar of neutral-smelling soap – the lack of added perfume would be less likely to irritate her healing wounds. When she came back down, we bathed and dried the girl before wrapping her in a sheet and carrying her upstairs to the guestroom on the top floor.

We set gingerly set her on the bed, and while Ella searched for undergarments and clothes to lend the girl, I applied antibiotics to her wounds and bandaged them. She was only a little taller than Ella, so she gave her a pair of new undergarments and newly washed pajamas. Once the girl was clean and freshly dressed, I tucked her in the guestroom bed.

All that was left to do was wait.

**[ [ x X x ] ]**

**And that's a wrap :) So here's the **_**Maximum Ride **_**vocabulary that I used this chapter:**

**Whitecoats**** – the mad, evil scientists who ran ****the School**

**Besides that, there isn't much else you need to know. Sorry for the late update :( Writer's block had me. Anyway. Catch ya on the flip!**


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